The phenomenon that is the radical left might be the best thing to happen to conservatives in decades. Politics has been a very predictable game of chess for many years; We see 8 years of a Democrat as President, then 8 years of a Republican as President, Then 8 years of a Democrat and the cycle has gone on since 1989 when George H.W. Bush won after Reagan. No two Democrats have won the presidency back to back since 1945 with Roosevelt and Truman. Before that, Democrats hadn’t won back to back presidencies since 1857, and the only other time was 1837. Needless to say, Republicans have been very fortunate to win back to back presidencies many times leading up to George H.W. Bush.
What has changed since 1989? Well it can be boiled down to the radicalizing of both sides of the political spectrum. When Republicans started endorsing trickle down economics, which was despised by the left, Democrats started moving their dial towards social issues such as gay marriage. Before long, Republicans would be known for bailing out Wall Street, and Democrats like Al Gore claimed Climate Change would sink Florida within 10 years and that farm animal overpopulation would make the ozone hole bigger.
Fast forward to now, the Republican party has not moved it’s dial on many political stances, the biggest one would most likely be the death penalty. However, the Democrat party has radicalized very far down the political hill and accepted a few stances that the Republican party took longer to accept; They’ve changed their position from only necessary abortions to abortions until time of birth, they’ve endorsed all LGBTQ+ platforms, and have fought for things like transgenders in their biological opposites bathrooms and sports, they’ve push heavily on social security programs and welfare state agendas, and to this day have now voted in very prominent Socialist personalities like Bernie Sanders, and Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez.
The Republican tent in the late 1990s and early 2000s accepted more Judeo-Christian values and didn’t push for LGBTQ+ rights, however we’ve been the party of the first president to openly accept gay marriage prior to being elected while fighting for free speech and less discrimination in the work place. We can cite major Supreme Court decisions splitting 5-4 in support to extend civil rights to sexual orientation. These two instances have expanded the Republican tent to including voters who vote based on social issues. It’s very important for many in the Republican party to take Libertarian stance on social issues; One person’s constitutional rights aren’t hindered by any personal characteristics until it impedes on someone else’s constitutional rights. This Libertarian moral is why more conservatives fight against merging genders bathrooms to be inclusive of transgenders, because it would impede on another’s right of privacy. Overall we see the Republican party openly accept social issues across the board and work towards making everyone equal, rather than giving one person a handicap over another.
The Republican tent has not moved on issues relating to abortion, gun control, social welfare programs and more economic stances, yet, we see the Democrat tent has shifted very far down hill to lose most of their moderate voters. The discussions in the early 2000s were not discussions about whether we should tax 4 trillion dollars for the New Green Deal, many voters were discussing bailing out social security for the elderly and medicare. Many of those discussions were bipartisan, if not very close to being bipartisan. So those who had minor grievances with the Republican party find themselves farther from the current Democrat platform than the Republican platform.
We see evidence that the Democrat party has radicalized their platform, that the 2020 Democrat National Convention has over 1,000 delegates who voted against the current party platform. We see Democrats like Georgia’s Vernon Jones denouncing the parties bigotry and radicalization and endorsing Donald Trump, and we see Democrats switching parties daily, and at historic rates in Battleground states like Pennsylvania.
The Republican Tent has never been bigger, and they only needed to embrace ideologies that favored freedom, liberty, and justice for all. The Republican party has always voted for freedom for all people, regardless of race, gender, sex, religion and creed. Always embracing the mentality that one’s constitutional rights stop where another’s starts, rather than infringing on them. The Democrat party would see to it that our religious freedoms are less than someone’s freedom to express their sexuality, rather than making them equal, the same is true for speech that disagrees with their perspectives. That mentality is being accepted by Moderates, and moderates are finding themselves under the Republican Tent, now that the Democrat tent has slid so far down hill.